BURKESVILLE, Ky. (AP) — A 5-year-old boy accidentally shot his 2-year-old sister to death in rural southern Kentucky with a rifle he had received as a gift last year, authorities said.

The children's mother was home at the time of the shooting Tuesday afternoon but had stepped out to the front porch for a few minutes and "she heard the gun go off," Cumberland County Coroner Gary White said. He said the rifle was kept in a corner and the family didn't realize a bullet was left inside it.

White told the Lexington Herald-Leader the boy received the .22-caliber rifle as a gift.

"It's a Crickett," White said, referring to a company that specifically makes guns, clothes and books for children. "It's a little rifle for a kid. ... The little boy's used to shooting the little gun."

The shooting, while accidental, highlights a cultural divide in the gun debate. While many suburban and urban areas work to keep guns out of the hands of children, it's not uncommon for youths in rural areas to own guns for target practice and hunting.

"Down in Kentucky where we're from, you know, guns are passed down from generation to generation. You start at a young age with guns for hunting and everything," White said Wednesday. What is more unusual than a child having a gun, he said, is "that a kid would get shot with it."

"Accidents happen with guns. They thought the gun was actually unloaded, and it wasn't," the coroner said.

White said the girl died of a single gunshot wound to the chest area.

In a brief news release, state police said the shooting occurred when the boy was "playing" with the rifle, but did not elaborate. It is not clear whether any charges will be filed, said Kentucky State Police spokesman Trooper Billy Gregory.

"I think it's too early to say whether there will or won't be," Gregory said.

The AP is not identifying the children because of their ages.

The company that made the gun, Milton, Pa.-based Keystone Sporting Arms, produced 60,000 Crickett and Chipmunk rifles in 2008, according to its website. It also makes guns for adults, but most of its products are geared toward children. The smaller guns come in all sorts of colors, including blue and pink.

The company's slogan is "my first rifle" and its website has a "Kids Corner" section where pictures of young boys and girls are displayed, most of them showing the children at shooting ranges and on bird and deer hunts. The smaller rifles are sold with a mount to use at a shooting range.

"The goal of KSA is to instill gun safety in the minds of youth shooters and encourage them to gain the knowledge and respect that hunting and shooting activities require and deserve," the website said.

No one at the company answered the phone Wednesday.

According to its website, Bill McNeal and his son Steve McNeal decided to make guns for young shooters in the mid-1990s and opened Keystone in 1996 with just four employees, producing 4,000 rifles that year. It now employs about 70 people.

Obviously, this tragedy could have been avoided if the sister has had a gun with which to defend herself.

5-year-old boy accidentally shot his 2-year-old sister to death in rural southern Kentucky with a rifle he had received as a gift last year

And that's all I needed to read. Normally, "condolences to their family" are in order, but I think this case would be an exception. Who the hell gives a 5-year-old kid a rifle!? (edit: Damn it Blue Shadow)

Was there not a vote on gun control recently? Why the hell did the majority of congress vote against that?

If my facts are wrong, please feel free to correct me. I don't follow politics closely, especially those of other countries.

Gez said:
Obviously, this tragedy could have been avoided if the sister has had a gun with which to defend herself.

Or a bullet proof vest. After all, a .22 should be easy to stop.

Eris Falling said:
Was there not a vote on gun control recently? Why the hell did the majority of congress vote against that?

As if that would stop some redneck in the deepest backwaters of the USA from obtaining a measly .22 for continuing with his All-American plinking, with the God Given right to Bear Arms that Manifest Destiny has given this Great Nation. OFC, a real redneck would've chosen at least a shotgun or a .45 revolver, but I'm digressing.

If by "gun control" you mean something more than simply passing a law saying "Thou shalt not buy guns", like e.g. searching even the sleaziest's hillbilly's or redneck's backyard or outhouse and confiscating everything, good luck with that: the resources required would be prohibitive, and of course the political cost would be too high. No wonder they would never vote it as long as the USA is a sovereign country.

Still....for a 5 yo kid I'd have second thoughts trusting it with an airgun (the softair kind), let alone a "hard" airgun or a real firearm, .22 or Flobert-class.

I hope this doesn't backfire, but I bet the majority of us played guns as kids? Naturally, these kids shouldn't be any different, so here's a great idea: Let's make it even more fun by giving them REAL guns!!!1 Because there's absolutely zero chance they'll shoot anyone else!

Well, KY is part of the deep south, right? I can't say I'm too surprised by the reality of my sarcasm.

Of course, I'm not suggesting that's what happened here, but you get the idea.

Now unless anyone has any objections, I'll go back to over-posting in the Doom section and merely glancing in EE :)

He said the rifle was kept in a corner and the family didn't realize a bullet was left inside it.

This is what gun cabinets are for.

Anyway, as much as some people might want it to be, this particular case isn't a gun-control issue. It's an issue of stupid, incredibly irresponsible parenting.

Eris Falling said:
Then clearly a legal age is needed for possession of guns.

There's a legal age requirement for the purchase of guns. The mother, or whomever purchased the gun was still the legal owner, not the child. Unfortunately, once someone has purchased a gun, there's no legislation that can ensure they handle it responsibly.

Parents buy child a gun as a gift. Wat.
Child plays with gun... unnattended. Wat.
A company that makes guns for children... in blue and pink... 'my first rifle'. Wat.

US gun culture is so bizarre.

Bizarre huh? Oh, you silly goose. In the united states, .22 caliber rifles and 410 shotguns are largely viewed as pointless toys for children and girls. But more and more commonly you'll find that people recommend that children NOT use these weapons and rather would opt for them to shoot larger bore guns instead. Why? Because 22s and 410s have almost negligible recoil when fired and they believe that it teaches bad habits on weapon control if and when they "grow up" and start using real weapons.

I'm 100% completely serious.

Edit: Actually this reminds me of when I got my firearms training certificate. In addition to normal classroom stuff and a written test, in order to complete the program we had to pass a marksmanship test. The test was done with .22 long rifles and I shit you not there was more than a handful of parents who were absolutely furious over the fact that test wasn't done with a 30.06 or 12ga or basically anything other than a measly 22.

Eris Falling said:
Well, KY is part of the deep south, right?.

South sure, but not deep south. But that distinction is kinda meaningless really.

Caffeine Freak said:
as much as some people might want it to be, this particular case isn't a gun-control issue. It's an issue of stupid, incredibly irresponsible parenting.

inb4 all the "Guns shouldn't be sold in the first place" responses.

In principle, it would be nice if the kind of idiots who think it's a good idea to give a child free access to a loaded gun were prohibited from buying them, and there was some sort of intelligence test to determine this one way or the other before the sale was made.

I'm just amazed that lawn darts are banned but real firearms are sold as children's toys.

I guess kids need the right to bear arms just as much as adults do, because children + well-regulated militia = fun! Oh wait, I forgot nobody ever gave a shit about the "well regulated militia" part of the Second Amendment.

Technician said:
Remember in the old days when you started a child off with a pellet gun?

But they always ended up shooting there eyes out. They decided that if the kid would shoot a deflective surface, they're better off dead than trying again with an eye injury.

Besides, in the old days I think it was only 12 yr olds who actually got real guns. 5 yr olds got sqwat and just had to sit around in their wooden cabins eating mother's brusselsprouts while hoping the indians wouldn't come and scalp them while the gun toting father and 12 yr old were away killing deer in a harty man to son adventure wearing coon-skin hats.

j4rio said:
With nine million bajillion guns around every corner, it's the kind of accident bound to happen sooner or later.

With all those loose stones and rock in playgrounds, somebody's head is also bound to open up sooner of later -never played "stone wars" as a kid? Or just "war"? Those could turn up pretty ugly too, when sticks & stones were involved, or worse, when someone considers bringing a knife from home "for fun", or realizes that he can form a "gang" to easily beat up whoever he wishes. The line between "single accident" and "calculated malice" can become very thin there.

In the end it boils down to what kind of education children receive, and realize that there are limits to what they can do before bordering on the criminally harmful/permanently damaging. Don't forget that children are, well, children, and can be irresponsibly and surprisingly cruel, given the "right" circumstances.

If those limits are not taught, then you risk breeding bullies, deviants and criminals, on the long run.

That company's guns are an embarrassment. If you're going to shoot stuff with shotguns then use a fun shotgun. This is how we securely destroy dead HDDs in our family.

As for those parents, I think they're too stupid to live. Take their kids away and sterilize the parents. Not figuring out a gun is still loaded is really stupid; letting a kid play with a gun unsupervised is unforgivable.

Creaphis
I will deliberately take a contrary position just for the sake of writing incredibly long arguments

Posts: 4232
Registered: 10-05

It never occurred to me that there are companies literally selling Gunz 4 Kidz, despite my disciplined study of human stupidity. The idea that this somehow teaches gun safety at an early age is astounding. Everything is a toy when you're five, and all this teaches is a life-long cavalier attitude to something that can kill your loved ones.